


The Scientist's Lament

by WolfishMoon



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-14
Updated: 2016-11-16
Packaged: 2018-08-30 22:19:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8551351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WolfishMoon/pseuds/WolfishMoon
Summary: Following Al's restoration, the Truth sends the Elric Brothers to the another universe with zero information. Neatly forged paperwork lands Ed a job teaching summer school remedial chemistry to children who are older than he is. Due perhaps to cosmic ineffability one of these summer school kids can lead the Elric brothers to precisely who the Truth had in mind. Book 6, Brotherhood.





	1. Brave New World

**Author's Note:**

> This has been the works for a while. And given the fallout of the U.S. election, I need a distraction between protests and rallies. So I'm gonna start working on it in earnest. The first four chapters are written, and they will be released weekly on either Sunday or Monday. So that's four weeks of updates right there. Because the first Harry Potter character doesn't appear till chapter two, I will likely post that on Wednesday. So I guess we're down to three weeks of updates. But whatever. 
> 
> Disclaimer: WolfishMoon does not own the rights to Fullmetal Alchemist or to Harry Potter. She never claims the contrary and makes no money off of the online publication of this free-to-read fanwork.

The Truth had told them that they needed to get to England. That was all he had told them, even as Ed glowered and held to Al's emaciated shoulders. So when Ed and Al woke in Germany, slumped against the red-brick side of a bar in the disreputable part of Berlin, Ed's first instinct was to get Al to a hospital and damn the consequences. 

"Brother," Al said, weakly brushing long hair over a - human! - bony shoulder. "We don't know how long a hospital visit will take. And you know what the Truth said!" 

They'd never had reason to find out before, but it seemed the younger Elric was just as disregardant of his own health as the elder. Ed's shoulders sagged. "Fine. Priority, however, is clothes. Then food. Then sleep. Fast." 

Al nodded tiredly as Ed pushed himself to his feet. "Can you stand?" he asked. 

"Yes," Alphonse said, putting a hand beside his jutting hip bone and pushing at the ground. He slumped. "No." 

Ed sighed. "I didn't think so." He pressed his hands together, feeling out the components of concrete, and of the earth below it. The equation balanced, and he put his hands to the pavement. The patch of sidewalk Al sat on sunk into the ground. Alphonse looked up, gold-brown eyes a question.

Ed took the concrete and smoothed it over the hole, leaving about three inches open for air. 

"It should hold, if someone walks over you," he said. "Stay here, Al. I'll bring you clothes and food." 

For a moment longer than was reassuring, there was silence. Then, "Be back soon, brother." 

"Of course, Al."

The dialectic difference was more than usually annoying - more difficult to comprehend than the mushy Amestrian he'd found in Liore, even. It might have also been that most of the chatter around him was, in fact, drunk.

"Go get yourself back to the university, kid." This from the bartender. Normally, Ed would have blown up, but he rolled his eyes and put his arms on the bar. He was a bloody, sweaty mess. But at least his exposed arm was of flesh and blood. Even if it was stupidly thin. 

"I'm not from the university," Ed said. "I need directions to the closest twenty-four hour store." Because the Truth didn't have it in him to send Ed to somewhere at midday.

He was given directions along with 'shorty' comments and was told to stop reciting the periodic table. Bullshit. He was only at Beryllium, and he still felt full ready to punch the man in the face. 

The convenience store was hardly better. There were a few cheap t-shirts in offensive colors piled in a corner, and the food was bad. He could transmute the t-shirts. And maybe rework the food a bit too. It would have to do. He grabbed a few cans of chicken soup, and enough t-shirts to make two full sets of clothes. An atlas was added to his armload as an after thought.He glanced to the counter, felt in his pocket for his watch and cursed. He supposed there was no such thing as a State Alchemist's tab, where ever it was the Truth had seen to put him. He scowled.

In the end, Ed just transmuted a door in the back wall and hoped to hell no one noticed. 

The walk back to the patch of sidewalk in which E had hidden Al was quiet and nerve wracking. He'd transmuted one of the shirts into a rucksack for the pile of cans and shirts he'd acquired, but he still felt awkward and naked. He was covered in blood and dirt, basically shirtless, with one weak and shriveled arm. But it was better than Al, completely naked and unable to even walk. 

He found the patch of sidewalk and transmuted himself inside. Alphonse looked at him with tired eyes. 

"I brought soup. And transmutable fabric." 

"Thank you, brother." Alphonse said. And rolled his eyes when he was presented with black, more black, and a bright red coat. 

It only took one eye-roll for Edward to sheepishly remove the red dye, and mix it to brown. He'd use the red for his own clothes. He alchemically brought the soup to a boil, inside its aluminum container, using a shirt to make it safe to hold. 

"Start slow, Al. This is gonna be really tough." 

"I know."

It only took a day for Ed to get his bearings, false records putting his age at a very false nineteen, and a job. They were in Berlin, Germany, and soon enough he'd get them to England.

 

Three months later, and they were in England. They had a rented flat paid for with the meager amount Edward had managed to save working at the University of Berlin.

Finally, they were in the country the Truth had wanted them to go to. But despite being on some sort of interdimensional mission for an incredibly sick god, Edward and Alphonse needed to provide themselves with the necessities. So Edward was waiting on a job interview, resume filled with fake credentials and an even faker age. 

Edward nervously fingered his trench coat. It was a plain beige, and he found himself desperately wanting to transmute it. The chair was red. He could swap the colors if he wanted. Before he knew it, he found himself feeling the fabric chair upholstery. The coat was mostly cotton, so that was mostly carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen like almost all organic matter. The dye of the upholstery was... ah got it! 

He had just brought his hands together when Al hissed at him to stop. He was here for a job interview. In a world where no one knew about Alchemy. They wouldn't appreciate him stripping the chair of its dye, and he chose the beige strictly because it was boring and professional. 

A woman in professional blacks came out of the office and called out his name. "You're up next," she said when he looked at her. "Good luck."

Al clasped Ed's shoulder. "I know you'll get the job, brother," he said. 

"Thanks," Ed said to Al in Amestrian and again to the woman in English, stood, and walked through the door, hoping that his false paperwork would hold up.

The office was plain, almost spartan in it's furnishings. There was a desk and a few chairs. Soft lavender wall paper with delicate white swirls going through it adorned the walls. "Edward Elric?" asked the woman behind the desk. She fit the spartan furnishings, but not the lavender wall paper. Not at all. 

"Zat is my name," he replied. "Ms. Jenkins, correct?" He extended his hand, and she shook it firmly.

"You're rather young to be a Chemistry teacher."

"Am nineteen, vhat of it? My credentials are in order, you vill see." 

She inclined her head, said, "Yes. Your resume is quite impressive. Humboldt University of Berlin, specializing in science education."

Edward nodded. He'd worked in the library there for two months and The head Librarian had agreed to help him with this shenanigan, in Equivalence to working there, on top of locating Schieska's double as his replacement. 

"Indeed. Had I extra funding, I vould have liked to go into education at the college level. As it is, I am more zan qualified. Just young. I graduated high school at sixteen, and completed my college courses two and a half years avter zat. Vas too easy. Am here now."

"I take it you've had trouble getting hired. Why is that?" Ms. Jenkins twirled a pen in her fingers as she looked at him. Ed found himself looking away from the gaze. 

"Age. No von vants teenager teaching teenagers, but I am legal adult," Ed said, twiddling with a button on his coat. What a lie that was. Ed felt his sixteen years of age very sharply and instead relied on falsely stern demeanor to age him.

"Well," Jenkins said after a moment of silence. "I don't really have any other options. Lots of people want the job in the English department, but no such luck for Chemistry. I'll hire you. Conditionally. You'll teach a summer school chemistry class. If I like how you teach it, you stay. I know you won't want to deal with the students who take remedial summer chemistry, but, tough."

Edward grinned. "Is Equivalence. You give me chance, I teach your delinquents. Thank you."

"Equivalence, you say," Jenkins said; a puzzled, but amused, smile came to her face.

"Conservation of Energy and Mass," Edward said, stood. "I've turned it to somezing ov a vilosovy." He extended his hand, and again they shook.

"Thank you, Ms. Jenkins."

"Don't thank me, Mr. Elric," she said, looking over purple rimmed glasses. "Classes start on Monday."

Ed's eyes widened almost uncontrollably, but he was a military man and took the news as he would an order from Colonel Bastard. Or rather, the exact opposite of how he would take an order from Colonel Bastard. He maintained his professionalism and nodded once. 

"I vill be zere," he said. "I trust you have textbooks for ze children? Goot. Give me von of zem, so I may plan my lessons." 

She gave him directions to the school bookstore and a note, as well as a pile of paperwork to fill out. This time, the image of Colonel Bastard did superimpose itself over the image of Jenkins, and Edward cursed. Jenkins laughed and ushered him out of the door. 

"Get a Miss Erica Carlan for me," she said. "I'm interviewing her for English."

Edward nodded, said, "Just so you know, I'm bringing mein bruder viz me to class."

Jenkins gave him a hard look before pushing him fully out of the door.

Alphonse was standing when Ed looked his way, having evidently stood at the first sign of Edward's emergence. Ed smiled at him, and called out for Carlan. When that was taken care of, Ed turned his attention back to Al. 

"How did it go?" Alphonse asked in Amestrian.

"Surprisingly well," Ed said, switching to the same. "I actually have the job." 

"That's fantastic!"

"Well, there is a catch." Ed adjusted the base of his braid. "I have to teach remedial summer chemistry first." 

Alphonse smiled. "I'm sure you'll do well, brother. And I'm sure your students will too. They probably haven't ever been given the chance to push themselves." 

Ed laughed and ruffled his brother's now-short hair. "You always see the best in people, Al. I hope you're right.


	2. Chemistry, Day One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't own Fullmetal Alchemist, don't own Harry Potter. I never claim the contrary and make no money off of this free to read fan work.

Hermione Granger was sorting through muggle schools supplies while attempting to ignore a gnawing guilt in her stomach. Her mother fluttered over her shoulder as she went through her list and counted notebooks and folders and pencils - Merlin it was an adjustment, relearning how to use a pencil every summer.

"I feel like we never see you," Jean said. "Boarding witch school in the winter, regular school in the summer!" 

"You know I like to stay current, mum," she said. "The closest I can get to a good maths class is Arithmancy!"

"That's the weird number hocus pocus, right?" her father, John, asked from his corner of the room. He was attempting to appear nonchalant, clear brown eyes looking over yesterday's newspaper. In reality, he'd been out of the chair three times in the last five minuets. "No loss. I always hated maths." 

"Well," Jean said in the sort of tone in which one might admit they shared their child's drug habit, "Calculus was my favorite subject in high school, so I can understand your frustration." 

"And its not just maths." Hermione frowned, "Science, too. There, the closest thing is potions and herbology. The first is taught by a sullen madman and the second is only once a week!" Frustration was welling up in her throat again, so Hermione forced herself to look back at her course list. Pre-Calculus, Chemistry, English Literature, French. Was that all she was taking? Yes, it was, she decided, going over her schedule. In that case, she did have enough notebooks. 

"You'll be leaving for that friend of yours - Ginny, was it? - house in two weeks, too!" John said. 

Hermione looked at them, suddenly wanting to tell them everything. My life is in danger, Mum, and the longer I stay here the more your lives are in danger. "It's hard," she finally said. "I've grown accustomed to magic, and trying to stay away from it just hurts." 

At this, her parents faces took on a solemnity. "Was it a mistake, sending you to Hogwarts?" John said. It might well have been a mistake but Hermione loved being a witch and was not about to say so.

"It's taken over our lives!" said Jean. 

Hermione winced, said, "I know. But Hogwarts was the right choice. Soon, I'll be seventeen, and this won't be quite so difficult. I'll be allowed to use magic outside of school, then." 

Her parents gave her the sort of look that she knew meant We know you're hiding something young lady. Give it up. 

But she wasn't going to give Death Eaters a reason to kill them, or the Ministry a reason to Obliviate them. 

Hermione shook her head. "We'll be fine, Dad, Mum." And for the time being, that was the end of the conversation.  
***  
By the time Monday rolled around, Ed was ready to swallow his co-workers in cement. All of them doubted his capabilities and made short jokes. They were nice enough beyond that, but those both were huge slights in Ed's book. He would prove his competence, though. He always had to and he always did, so he stood before the dull eyes of twenty delinquents, gripping a mug of coffee and wishing he could wear short sleeves in this damnable heat. But his right arm was still fairly atrophied and there would be questions. A still thin Alphonse sat in the front row, to the right side of center, grinning at him, and that had to be enough.

He wrote on the chalk board "The Conservation of Energy and Mass." Chemists might not know Alchemy, but Alchemy was what he knew, and he would structure the class accordingly.

"Is anyone villing to pass out zee periodic tables? Nein? Vell fukk you zen. You zere in zee back row, pass them out." 

"Brother!" said Al in Amestrian. "Language!"

Ed responded in the same language. "Do you want to pass out the periodic tables, then?"

"I could," Al said. "I don't mind."

At that a bushy haired girl ran into the classroom, backpack slung over one shoulder. "I'm sorry I'm late Professor!" she said, fighting for breath. He looked at her and motioned the other student, who was half standing, waiting for Ed to finish his exchange with Al, back into their seat.

"Professor? I vish. Mr. Elric iz fine. Don't be late again, and now pass out zee periodic tables. Equivalence, no?"

"Of course Mr. Elric!" she took the tables from his desk and brought them around. Ed said nothing and instead began to write out, as far from the conservation note as possible, the states of matter. 

When she finished, she took a seat in the center seat of the front row, next to Al. It was otherwise vacant. Ed raised an eyebrow, then turned to the class. 

"My name is Mr. Elric. I don't really care vhy it is any of you flunked zis class last year, but I assure you, any tomfoolery and I vill fail you. You vill have to take this class over yet again, but zat iz not my problem. On zee right hand side of zee front row, vee have my baby brozer. He iz probably better teacher zan I am, to be honest, so treat him viz zee same respect you vould treat me." He turned to the blackboard. "On zee board I have written headings for two separate notes pages. I vould ask if any of you knew vhat zee first meant, but..." 

Ed took a sweeping glance around the class, not expecting any raised hands. To his surprise there was one. The girl who was late, and sat front and center. He nodded at her, bangs falling into his eyes.

"The Law of Conservation states that energy and matter can neither be created nor destroyed," she said.

A girl in the second row took this as her cue to speak up. "Well, except when someone has a baby."

Edward looked at her in shock. Was she kidding? "Nein. I heard you'd somehow passed biology," he said. "Evidently, you should not have. During gestation, ze food ze mozer ingests gets converted into ze matter zat makes up ze resulting child."

"What? Babies aren't made of food," the girl said. Al turned pink.

"Yes they are," front-and-center-girl said, turning in her desk to face girl-who-needs-to-retake-biology. "We all are. The food we eat is converted both to energy and into the matter that makes up our bodies. It's how we grow and function." She then went into the mechanics of it all, and Ed was sure at least half the class was red-faced. Samantha slid lower in her chair. 

Ed's other eyebrow went up, and he continued the lesson. Front-and-center-girl, or Hermione Granger, he learned after taking roll, raised her hand at every question, though he only called on her about half the time. 

Each class was about two hours long, for the sake of the shortened summer semester. In those two hours, he managed to get them passed the introductory phases and into the adjoining laboratory. They were just evaporating water from a salt water mixture, but even the hardest of the delinquents seemed excited by the work. Ed smirked. Kids do love labs. 

"See, brother?" Al said. "They're not so bad!" 

"Go help them, then," Ed said. "You take half, I'll take half." 

Alphonse nodded, and weaved through the lab benches, calling out in broken English. Ed smiled, and did the same, striding to the closest bench on the right side of the room. It housed the bushy haired front row girl and girl-who-needs-to-retake-biology. 

"Vat are your names again? My memory for zat sort of sing resulted in me calling way too many people by unflaterink nicknames."

With one eye still on her lab packet, Bushy said, "My name is Hermione Granger."

The other girl, who was bent over the first's notes, straitened, flipped a sheaf of wavy black hair over her shoulder. "Samantha," she said. 

She then launched into a half question - half complaint tirade about how hard chemistry was and how her previous teacher had just been awful. 

Granger, Elric noticed, snorted into her sleeve before saying, "I think I have decent enough grasp on the concept of compounds to help you through this, Samantha. Let the Professor help a group that needs it more." 

"How do you get it already?" Samantha said.

Granger gestured to the textbook she had open to the second chapter. "I read through my textbook before classes started, and have it here for reference, too." 

"Vas? Vreally?" Ed said in vague disbelief. He wondered why this girl had not simply done so the first time she'd taken Chemistry. "I've only read srough zee first fife chapters!" 

Granger blinked at him. "Really?" 

Ed nodded. 

"I couldn't do that," she said. "But, I'm sure you know your Chemistry?" 

Her voice had a questioning note that Ed did not appreciate. "Vell," he said, tersely, "Do you need any help? Or can I move on to a group zat needs it?"

Granger patted her lab packet. "I've got it covered Professor." 

"It's Mr. Elric," he reminded her. She nodded, suddenly cross. Ed inclined his head toward the two, and walked away. Alphonse was off on the opposite side of the room, laughing wildly with students at a table of four. Really. If Al's health was any better, Ed would have had him be the teacher. Al was clearly better at it. 

But the day went on, and Ed felt that he was getting somewhat better at answering their questions. He tried not to curse at occasional inanity. He'd told Jenkins he was nineteen, but really, these kids were a full year older than him. Logically, he knew that he and Al had considerably more life experience, so he really had to stop judging them so harshly.

As class ended, Ed examined each of his students closely. None of them were bad kids, he decided, even if they had flunked high school Chemistry. 

With that in mind, he had a much easier time, trying to teach second period.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes guys. When I was taking sophomore year chemistry, I had to explain how conservation of matter applied to reproduction. To other sophomores. Who had somehow passed biology. My teacher was too flustered to explain so she had me explain how babies are made to sixteen year olds. ON THE FIRST DAY OF CLASS. 
> 
> I'm a freshman in college now and I still think about that day. Probably because having to regularly explain concepts in that class is a big reason I had the spine to go into science.
> 
> Anyway, tell me how you liked the chapter.


End file.
